


The Things We Hide

by mimiwriteswords



Series: Needle & Thread [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Conversations, F/M, Hidden Feelings, Implied Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21887680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimiwriteswords/pseuds/mimiwriteswords
Summary: "Perhaps there are some things that your mind has been hiding from you."
Relationships: Caitlin Snow/Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells
Series: Needle & Thread [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621186
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	The Things We Hide

**Author's Note:**

> For J- thank you for the inspiration. Here's to many years of obsessing over Harry Wells. Merry Christmas!

To him, she’s very much like a tightly wound secret. A bundle of mysteries he can’t quite untangle.

He knows things about her of course, but he’s gathered this information from overhearing conversations at S.T.A.R Labs. She rarely shares things about herself with him. And why should she? He wears the face of the man who betrayed her trust. He’s not expecting her to start sharing things with him anytime soon.

He has to check himself when thoughts of her creep into his mind. He cannot understand why he’s drawn to her. Well ...besides the obvious reasons. She’s a brilliant scientist, often the smartest one in a room full of exceptional people. It doesn’t hurt that she looks the way she does- tall, poised, and breathtakingly beautiful. She is also incredibly kind. She tends to Barry’s hurts with her medical expertise but also soothes him with her gentle, encouraging words. She banters playfully with Cisco for hours but knows how to keep him in check when he’s being facetious. She’s basically the most thoughtful person he has ever known and he’s certain that it goes beyond the Hippocratic Oath. He can tell that the team relies on her advice and he’s even watched Joe single her out to seek her counsel. She already makes an impact when she delivers advice in her calm manner and on the rare occasion when her composed exterior gives way to her fiery inner self, it is quite something to behold.

  
If truth be told, he has always envied people who were emotionally intelligent. People who had the ability to wait out the storm with the ones they love. The only person he could ever put everything on the line for is his daughter. But as he watches Team Flash interact with each other - the camaraderie, inside jokes, shared history, and casual embraces- he can’t help thinking that he’s been going about it wrong on his Earth. It would take anyone less than two minutes to figure out that Team Flash functions like a family- loud, extremely close knit, and just slightly dysfunctional. The past few weeks have made him want to be a part of this family and he loathes himself for feeling this way. These feelings are foreign to him. So he lets his defense mechanisms take over and goes back into old routines of the snide remarks and seclusion. And yet, sometimes he finds himself wondering what it would be like to belong to people.

  
Or to a person. 

  
While he’s been keeping a close eye on everyone, it’s Caitlin that has been driving him up the wall. It’s not that he wants to get to know her per se…it’s more like he is incredibly curious about her. She very rarely dives into personal anecdotes while solving a meta-human case, unlike Cisco. She doesn’t talk about her life outside of S.T.A.R Labs. Hell, he doesn’t even know if she owns a pet. He has never heard her speak of her family and he’s gathered from Cisco that it is best to never to talk about that with her. He knows that she lost her husband, not too long ago. In his first few days on this Earth, he had seen her play with her wedding band when she was deep in thought. He noticed that she was no longer wearing it. 

  
She has also mastered the art of being nice to him when needed and at the same time, keeping him at arm’s length. She offers him a cup of coffee every time she brews a fresh pot, gracing him with a sincere, yet guarded smile. Their interactions are limited to the work they do and he is perfectly all right with that since he has never been one for mindless chatter. Except when there is a lull in the day and they are both working side by side, engulfed in silence. Unlike Cisco, who seems simple incapable of spending five minutes without pestering him with his somewhat asinine comments, she seems resigned to let the silence remain. It is in these silences that his mind strays to her and his eyes, occasionally, follow suit.

  
He is bothered by how little he knows about her relationship with their Wells. He knows that Wells was her mentor. But he can also sense that there is some mystery surrounding the exact nature of their relationship. He has his suspicions about why there is such secrecy surrounding them but he does not want to be presumptuous. He makes the mistake of asking Cisco about them who immediately goes into his defensive, brotherly mode. Ultimately, it is Iris who implies that there was some level of affection present with Caitlin and Wells, perhaps more so than one would expect in a student and teacher relationship. She also mentions, very carefully, that it may had been unrequited.

  
He decides to ask Caitlin about it one night while they each work independently in the lab. He doesn’t look at her and tried to be as nonchalant as possible when he says “So I know Ramon and Allen’s stories with Wells, but I don’t know yours.”

  
The silence has him looking up at her. She was sitting up extremely straight; her shoulders were squared and stiff. He instantly regretted his comment.

  
“Are you asking me?” She said, her voice soft. Her face betrayed nothing.

“You don’t have to answer, Snow. I was merely curious.”

  
She pushed herself up from the chair and stood up. He braced himself to see her walk out of the room. Instead, she started pacing. Her shoes clicked on the linoleum floor with each step.

  
“Dr. Wells was my mentor at S.T.A.R Labs. Before that, he was a brilliant scientist I never thought I’d get to work with” She said in a distant voice. “I was in graduate school when I first met him. I was giving a presentation and there he was, sitting in the front row. I had no idea he would be there. That was probably for the best.”

  
“Why?”

  
She continued to pace back and forth, her eyes glued to the floor. “I would have been much too intimidated. He was…Dr. Wells. I had read his papers, heard of his research prowess. I’d never thought I would stand in the same room as him. He was…” She trailed off, with a quiet sigh. “He was so intimidating that day. And so very tough. He asked me the hardest questions. It felt like he was on a mission to make me doubt my expertise in the field but he just wanted to test my knowledge. And tenacity, I suppose. I was never afraid of going toe to toe with him.” She laughs, hollow and bitter. “He contacted me a few years later and offered me a job.”

  
He listened to her with bated breath. He was almost impressed with that she had spoken for a few minutes and yet revealed nothing he had not already known. 

  
“So he was your mentor.” He knows he sounds brusque.

  
“Yes.”

  
“Anything else?”

  
She stopped pacing and crossed her arms across her chest. Her shoulders still looked tense.

  
“What?”

  
“Was he anything else?” He said, knowing very well that he is treading on dangerous ground.

  
“What are you implying?” She asks, her voice high and sharp.

  
He gets up from his chair and walks over to her. She watches him with a strange look on her face, as if she’s perplexed as to where this conversation is going. He wonders that himself, but he cannot back out now. She takes a small step backwards as he reaches her. He always forgets how tall she is until he’s within feet or so of her. She gazes up at him; he still has a few inches on her. Her face looks flushed.

  
“Was he anything else to you?” He repeats, watching her closely this time, hoping he can catch a flicker of truth on her face when she lies to him, much like he is expecting her too.

  
He’s utterly surprised when she draws in a shaky breath and says, “Yes.”

  
She must have surprised herself because her hazel eyes widen as she answers him. She shakes her head. At herself or him, who knows?

  
Her answer is almost like a slap to the face. He takes a slight step backwards, suddenly aware that he is close enough to smell her perfume. It smells crisp, with sharp hints of something floral.

  
“I’m prying. I apologize, Snow.”

  
“You’re curious about your Earth -1 counterpart.” She shrugs, leaning on the table behind her. “I understand.”

  
He laughs internally and doesn’t bother correcting her. “He hired your husband as well?”

  
“He wasn’t my husband then.” She looks away as she answers him. “But yes, he hired Ronnie. We met while working on the particle accelerator.”

  
She’s quiet for a second before she looks him in the eyes and says, “He died in the singularity.”

  
He nods, knowing very well that there are no words that can bring comfort when one has lost their spouse. The silence stretches between them, feeling more loaded than either one of them could expect. He wonders if he should apologize again when she breaks the silence “I guess my history with Wells is not as tragic as Barry’s or as traumatizing as Cisco’s. But it was still a betrayal.”

  
He wants to ask her to elaborate but her voice sounds resigned and distant again, as if she’s reaching deep within herself for emotions long buried away. Perhaps she’s looking for validation that she, much like Barry and Cisco, has been very deeply hurt. She hasn’t given him any details but he knows his suspicions were correct. He wished he could offer her some words of comfort but he knows his attempts would be futile. He knows where his strengths lie and they most certainly do not apply to interpersonal relationships. He doesn’t stop her when she pushes herself off of the table and walks back to her work station. He does the same and tries his best not to notice that her back is turned towards him.  


****

  
It all starts with a question.

  
A seemingly innocent question and the emotionally charged conversation that followed kept Caitlin up that night. She is quite used to her intermittent sleeping routine by now- it’s been a few years since she has slept all through the night. If she had to pinpoint a moment when her restless nights started, she could easily point to the night of the particle accelerator explosion. She could have never guessed that that one night would have changed everything for her.

  
Well, almost everything.

  
For as long as she could remember, Caitlin had carried an ever present ache with her. Perhaps it could be attributed to the loss of her husband, the revelation of her mentor’s true identity or the crushed dreams of what her career could have been. It could even be attributed to her icy relationship with her mother or the devastating loss of her father.

Whether this ache came from one circumstance or was a combination of all of them, one thing was certain; this ache was here to stay.

  
She had made her peace with it. It was a familiar ache now, much like an old friend. In fact, she wouldn’t know how to function like Caitlin Snow without it. Each heartbreaking circumstance in her life seemed to add on to the ache, making her the woman she is now.

The most recent addition to this lifetime of pain was in the cortex, pacing like a caged animal ready to pounce at the nearest prey.

  
She didn’t know what to make of him. She had barely come to terms with the fact that her mentor was a two-faced speedster from the future (….and a murderer, the little voice in her head reminded her) and would have been perfectly happy to never set eyes on him again. Yet there he was, wearing a hole into the floor of S.TA.R. Labs. He had the exact same face yet one glance at the intense and dark expression on his face would confirm that he was different. His body language was unfamiliar and stand-offish and his demeanor cold. But there was something else underneath it all. A desperation of sorts. Perhaps, even a longing.

  
He seemed to be carrying some pain around with him, that was evident enough. She wondered if his short temper and angry remarks were a result of this pain. It was unlike their Dr. Wells, who was always polished and sophisticated.

  
She had once thought that she might have loved him. She acknowledged now, with considerable guilt, that it was not love that she felt for him but a heady combination of admiration, lust and a need to be his favourite mentee. She felt particularly guilty when she thought of her dead husband, with whom she shared the most pure love. She almost felt relieved that she would never have to share this revelation with Ronnie. Relief was always followed by disgust. 

  
She was able to stop herself from dwelling on this during work. And then he showed up. All dressed in black, with his hair in disarray, his blunt and acerbic speech and a strangely familiar obsession with Big Belly Burger. Everyone had been on edge since he had showed up; he stirred up the worst feelings in all of them. She had tried to quash the multitude of emotions running rampant through her and forced herself to focus on things within her expertise.She insisted, quite petulantly, that she run some tests on him when he had first arrived. But when she touched him, as minimally as she possibly could while drawing his blood, she felt herself falling down a rabbit hole she couldn’t bother to go down.

  
If he noticed her slightly quivering hands, he didn’t say anything. He never said much to her outside of the usual business.

  
Until he does.

  
She had been noticing the attention paid to her. She wasn’t naive enough to think it was her looks or personality that has been captivating him. She could tell that he wanted to talk to her about something. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head, his mind reaching and grappling with his thoughts. She would have never thought that he would bring up Dr. Wells. He made his abhorrence of their Wells perfectly clear, a trait she found quite admirable. Moreover, she would have never in a million years guessed that he would ask her so blatantly if Wells had been meant something more to her. She wonders what put this thought into his head.

  
In the year following the particle accelerator and even months after the singularity, no one on Team Flash had asked her about her relationship with Wells. She was well aware that everyone had their own suspicions but she was grateful that no one has ever asked her about it. Their conversation had her feeling unsettled, almost as if an alarm had been set off somewhere deep within her.

  
“Caitlin! Hey….” Barry’s voice snapped her out of her reverie. He was standing close to her with his arms folded across his chest and a concerned look on his face. “Cait, you okay?”

  
Caitlin almost broke into a smile when she heard the familiar nickname. She had forgotten that he was one of the few people who called her that. As she gazed up at Barry’s face, she wondered why they had never fallen in love with each other. They had been in close proximity for most of the past year, going through things that were unimaginable to most people. From the moment Barry woke up from his coma, he had reminded her of Ronnie. His sense of humour, his goofiness around Cisco, his reverence of Dr. Wells, his protectiveness toward her and of course, the heroic qualities. And perhaps that is why they never fell into a romance of any sort, despite the many opportunities for their feelings to develop for one another. It was a road that had been briefly explored until the eventual roadblock showed up. But there is affection here, Caitlin thought as she looked up at him. They were bonded together by the very unique situation they found themselves in.

  
“I’m fine.” She said, not convincing either of them. Barry sighed and leaned against the table as she attempted to go back to her work.

  
“I know it’s hard for you to have him here.” He nodded towards Wells. Something in his tone had Caitlin looking up at him again. He had an earnest and almost pitiful look on his face.

  
“It’s hard for all of us.” She said, trying her best to mask any emotion in her voice. “More so for you, I think.”

  
“But it was different for you.” He continues. “You and Wells had a … special bond.” She can hear the implication in his hesitation. “You were the last to still believe in him.”

  
She stands up, not wanting this conversation to continue. “Thawne was very good at manipulating all of us. But I am fine, I promise.” She briefly touches his arm on her way out of the lab, hoping that her walk looks confident and less like what it really is- a desperate need to recollect herself.

  
She’s careful not to look him in the eye as she walks past him and out of the cortex, her heels clicking with each measured step she takes. She wonders if he is watching her walk away. She chides herself for this female thought that pops into her head out of the blue (let’s be honest, it’s not out of the blue, her inner voice says).

  
She goes to Cisco’s workshop, hoping for some peace and quiet. She paces for a good fifteen minutes before she hears footsteps making their way to her.

  
“Snow.”

  
His voice is low and raspy, like always. He almost sounds irritated with her. She shoots him a look and continues pacing.

  
“You are needed in the cortex.” He made his way around the table, and settled down in front of the computer.

  
“They can wait a minute.” She hates that her voice betrays her and conveys her irritation so quickly. 

  
“Something wrong?” His eyes are trained on the computer in front of him, his fingers hitting the keyboard swiftly.

  
She wonders if she should be truthful. Or perhaps stomp out of the room altogether. She’s never been one for dramatics so she stays put.

  
“No.”

  
He stops typing and suddenly it feels much too quiet in the room. She turns around to look at him. He shakes his head and get up from the chair. He has a strange look on his face. Is it remorse, she thinks to herself. She’s definitely intrigued as she watches him struggle with his words.

  
“ Look, Snow. I...um” He swallows, running a hand through his hair. “I may have overstepped the other day.”

  
She raises an eyebrow but remains silent.

  
“It was wrong of me. I apologize.”

  
She knows that she should accept this odd show of remorse graciously. She did, after all, decide to share her story with him that day. It's not as if he had put a gun to her head.   
But she hasn’t felt like herself since their conversation and it is disconcerting. She is not in a gracious mood so she instead she finds herself saying, “And with that heartfelt apology, all is forgiven.”

  
She sees something flash in his eyes and watches as he walks towards her, slow and almost predatory. His proximity allows her to notice a few more things. His face shows signs of exhaustion, but his blue eyes are bright with an emotion she cannot recognize. His black clothing conceals a lot but up close, she can make out the strong muscles of his arms under his shirt. She swallows as he stands less than a feet from her.

  
“Ok, I get it.” He says, his voice is barely a whisper. “You don’t talk about some things.”

  
It suddenly dawns on her that he never really mentioned why he had asked her about Dr. Wells.

  
“Why did you want to know about me and Wells?” She notices the slight flinch in his face when she says his name. Does it bother him that she still refers to Thawne as Wells?

  
He remains quiet for a minute, keeping a steady gaze on her.

  
“Curiosity, I suppose.”

  
“Anything else?”

  
She can see recognition dawn on his face at the familiar words. She’s not expecting him to respond to her bold and rather cheeky remark. He cocks his head back slightly, as if conceding defeat. She can see the slightest flicker of a smirk on his face. The air around them seems dense and charged with something she can’t quite describe.

  
“Caitlin!”

  
They turn away from each other to see an exasperated Cisco standing at the threshold of the door, taking in the scene in front of him. 

  
“What is taking so long? We’ve been waiting for you!”

  
She makes her way towards the door without another word, knowing that it was time to get back to work.

  
****

  
“What was that?” Cisco says, pointing at Caitlin's retreating figure.

  
He takes a deep breath in, removing his glasses and running his hand over his face. He cannot even begin to comprehend what happened between him and Caitlin a few minutes ago. How did his apology turn into this bizarre conversation? Granted, it was not a great apology but the conversation most certainly should _not_ have taken such a turn.

  
“Earth to Harry!”

  
He turns to see Cisco comically waving his arms over his head. 

  
“What?” 

  
“What was that?”

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“Don’t play dumb, Harry.” Cisco says, giving him a thoroughly unimpressed look.

  
“I’m not playing at anything.”

  
“For real?” Cisco asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “So that’s how it's going to be?”

  
He sighs, placing his glasses back on his face, and tries once again, “Seriously, Ramon. I don’t know what you think you saw.”

  
“Oh I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw you all up in Caitlin's personal space and for some reason, neither of you looked uncomfortable.

  
It stings a little, that Cisco has turned out to be more emotionally astute that he thought him to be.

  
“You have quite the imagination, Ramon.”

  
“Harry, c’mon! I saw the look on your face.”

  
“For god’s sake, there was no look!” He can feel his temper simmering. He feels desperate for some quiet. He walks back towards the computer and sits down. He knows by now that the best way to get Cisco to shut up is to ignore him. It seems to work because Cisco huffs and walks towards the door. He sighed, thinking he is alone when he hears Cisco’s voice from the shadows beyond the door.

  
“Harry.”

  
Cisco waits until he looks away from the computer and meets his eyes. Cisco’s voice is soft and knowing when he utters, “Perhaps there are some things that your mind has been hiding from you.”

  
  
  



End file.
